When you mess with fate

Chapter 6

A/N: I do not own Bleach and its characters. If I did... Never mind…

Seconds after "Yo!"

Rukia could feel a huge lump in her throat. She mentally cursed Renji for not leading so she could hide behind him. She was definitely not ready for this. Ichigo looked so different. His hair was much shorter now and she briefly wondered if he did that to look more like a dad. She hoped that wasn't the case because he looked like a moron instead with that hairstyle. The Kurosaki Ichigo with the wild, notorious spikes, was gone. Even the orange was dull, pale, and basically dead. It lacked the glare of the sun and the blare of the horn that it used to have. And what's with that out-of-place smile? He should've kept the scowl.

She was thankful, though, that he didn't look quite like the old Ichigo. It made her feel less nervous. He no longer looked like the Ichigo who ran headlong with the folded chair towards the hollow when she first met him. He no longer looked like the Ichigo who stormed Soul Society to save her. He no longer looked like the Ichigo who defeated Aizen. He no longer looked like the Ichigo who destroyed Yhwach. And he definitely did not look like the Ichigo who put the ring on her finger.

But his voice was still Ichigo. She started to feel a crack within her. She needed to act fast before she broke apart. Crossing her arms over her chest to hold herself together, she greeted, "Hey!" A little too loud.

Renji flinched at the awkwardness in her voice as he was trying to figure out what to do; maybe contribute to the conversation or something. But before he could open his mouth, he heard her spout her first nonsense.

"Ooh, I see this place is just as popular as ever," she commented while standing at the doorway, looking around the clinic, anywhere but Ichigo. "Why, yup! I even hear some crickets inside."

"This is an emergency clinic. So being empty is a good thing," Ichigo said in defence before he looked over his shoulder, his eyes also meeting blank spaces. (Renji felt like strangling the two of them now.) "If you're done with the stand-up routine, feel free to come inside."

The two shinigami followed Ichigo into the house where their other human friends were gathered around the couch.

"Anyway, I guess now everyone is here," he announced, causing the ones who were there to turn away from the TV to look at the new arrivals.

Keigo, as usual, greeted Rukia with much enthusiasm and was just about to invite her to sit with him when he got socked in the face by Tatsuki. Mizuiro who sat closer to the screen, complimented her on her new hairstyle. It's funny how everyone was still like how they were in high school. Ten years and they were still acting like teenagers. So weird. But at least she didn't have to learn to get used to new personalities. That would be an extra chore.

And speaking of new personalities...

"Out of the way! Coming through!"

"The popcorn and soda has finally arrived!"

Before she knew it, Rukia was pulled aside by Renji to make way for the twins who were definitely much bigger now, and so much taller than her. Of course, they would be bigger. They were already 23 years old. Heck, she even missed their teenage years! What kind of a third daughter was she to her 'Papa'? The twins spoke with her for a few moments after hugging her like crazy, sharing stories and updating her on their dating lives. It was just like old times – them seeking her advice as the older sister they never had while their brother steered clear of awkward topics.

Then, Karin got everyone to gather around the TV because Chad's fight was starting soon. Wow, Chad's a boxer, she thought. So he gets to punch people for fame and money. She sure didn't see that coming. Tuning out the silly argument between Keigo, Mizuiro, and Tatsuki, she stared at the screen that was showing the face of the gentle giant. He looked... different. His eyes had that steely, emotionless feeling. No compassion at all. But then again, ten years was a long time. Anything could've happened. In Chad's case, maybe someone tore through his chest and ripped his heart out like what Grimmjow did to her.

"Hey, where's Ishida?" Renji asked, snapping her out of her trance.

Yuzu replied without looking away from the TV, "Ishida-kun couldn't get off work but he said he will try to watch it from his phone at the hospital."

"Ishida's a doctor?" Rukia exclaimed unbelievably, a little too loudly once again. And once again, Renji flinched.

No one seemed to think that was a strange thing except Ichigo. The two of them glanced at each other. During the war, Ishida had told Ichigo that he didn't want to follow in his father's footsteps because he had witnessed horrifying stuff that Ryuuken did as a doctor. This topic came up during one of Ichigo and Rukia's pillow talks after their... Hmm, so only the two of us know about this, she mused.

What was supposed to be a glance, turned into a stare. Ichigo was the first one to snap out of it. He looked over his shoulder and called towards the kitchen, "It's starting, Orihime."

Orihime...

"Be right there!" came a very feminine voice.

Rukia turned around to see her busty old friend with long orange locks hurrying out of the kitchen. She looked so gorgeous and domesticated. The petite shinigami felt the pinch within her but she chose to cast the sweet girl her friendliest smile as she stood up to give her a hug. "In-... Kurosaki-san."

"Kuchiki-san!" Orihime returned the hug, squeezing the life out of Rukia. When they released each other, she said, "Please call me Orihime. We've been friends for so long."

Rukia nodded, keeping the smile on her face. She really couldn't find it in her heart to fault anything about this girl or the situation (tall, hot, orange) between them. If anything, Rukia felt more grateful to Orihime for being the one to live Ichigo's human life with him. "Only if you would call me Rukia."

They both talked for a while to catch up on each other's life. In order for her to keep it together while listening to Orihime's side of the story, Rukia resorted to acting again. This did not go unnoticed by Ichigo who could clearly see through it and he was trying really hard to not let his breakfast come back up his throat.

"You seen Kazui?" he asked, a little too forceful. He just wanted Rukia to stop talking with that annoying schoolgirl voice. The petite girl glared at him but he chose to ignore it, waiting for Orihime's reply.

The orange-haired woman turned her eyes upwards, recalling where she last saw the little boy. "Hmm... He should be upstairs. According to Tsubaki and the others, he just got back in from snooping around Hiyori's place."

Yuzu, who overheard the conversation, said she thought Kazui would most probably be in Ichigo's old room and then the three Kurosaki siblings went into some inside story conversation, which Rukia had no idea about and couldn't be bothered with, to be honest. But what piqued her interest was what Orihime had said about her flower powers.

"Tsubaki-san and the others babysit for you?" Rukia asked.

"Babysit!" Orihime giggled. "I guess you could call it that. They help me watch him. It's a good thing he doesn't know they exist, though. Otherwise, he wouldn't be too happy because he likes to freely roam around on his own."

"So, your son really cannot sense spirits at all?"

"Ano..."

"Wait a sec," Ichigo interrupted. "Weren't you guys supposed to bring your kid along this time?"

Rukia rolled her eyes at his intrusion but answered him, "Ahh, that's right. It totally slipped my mind but she's finally become a Gotei apprentice. She's been given special permission to come down during the bon festival."

What bon festival? Ichigo wondered as he watched her walk towards the main door – to call out to her kid, he presumed. He already knew it was Yoruichi's idea to bring the soul kid to the human world. Why did Rukia choose to carry on acting like an idiot?

"Hmm..." she said, coming back inside the house. "I guess she's gone."

That made Ichigo rise up from his seat to chastise her, "What's with that cavalier attitude?"

Rukia deliberately turned away from him. The way he yelled at her had evoked a sudden feeling of homesickness within her. "Don't worry. She's a shinigami," she responded, pushing the lump in her throat farther down. "With mere humans as her opponents, she's sure to come out on top." And then, she started in her singsong voice, "Alright, ready or not, here I come to find you..."

Ichigo literally roared, "So she's some bully who enjoys picking on helpless humans?"

Renji was just standing there, arms crossed and foot tapping in irritation. It was like they were playing hide-and-seek with each other and using their verbal sparring as a distraction. These two are total arses, he thought.

"Go freaking find her, for crying out loud!"

One last howl from Ichigo was all Renji needed to set him off but he just grumbled under his breath, "I'll go get her," before he ran upstairs to Ichigo's old room.

The death and the strawberry continued their argument about things that didn't make sense, disregarding the other people who were present in the Kurosaki home. Ichigo was going on and on about how the midget never learnt about the dangers of the human world and Rukia was yelling at him for being a worrywart all the time, freaking out about the tiniest things. Neither of them knew if they were still talking about Ichika, though.

A hiss of reiatsu settled between them, causing them to cease their bickering. Even though Ichigo was not supposed to be able to feel anything anymore, he was sent into a trance that seemed to have lasted for hours, which in fact was only a couple of seconds to everybody else.

There is a reason why I completely ignored that part about Renji and Rukia still standing at the doorway when Ichigo asked them, "Weren't you guys supposed to bring your kid along this time?" I don't get why those two are still standing at the doorway after they have gone inside the house and Rukia has already spoken to Karin and Yuzu, and Karin has already told everyone Chad's show is starting. Also, what 'bon festival'? That part just does not connect with the other parts in this chapter, which only goes to show that 686 was either not properly planned or not something Kubo came up with wholeheartedly. That's just one flapdoodle thing in that bollocks chapter. There are others like (1) how Tatsuki isn't wearing the same top in the two panels she is in, and (2) Yuzu's out-of-character brother complex, and (3) only Mayuri, Byakuya, and Sui-Feng are there to investigate the return of Yhwach's reiatsu (the guy almost destroyed the whole universe – shouldn't every captain be involved in this?), and (4) Byakuya's nonchalance about his sister visiting the human world when something big is happening (shouldn't he be going all Kuchiki on her and telling her to come back to Seireitei immediately because her job is more important than her social life?), and why... never mind. I guess if I'm really going to dissect the entire chapter and look for all the faults within it, it would take a whole lifetime to write a full report.

Sorry for the late update. I've had these two chapters sitting in my Mac since I last uploaded Chapter 5 but I didn't have the time to edit them. Been pretty busy with life. So here's Chapter 6. Actually, Chapters 4-7 were supposed to be in one chapter. But it got too long and I wanted them to be as properly distributed as possible where word count's concerned; so I had to split them up.